A FORMER clerk to Padiham Town Council, who overpaid herself almost £12,000, has been spared immediate prison.

Burnley Crown Court had heard how convicted arsonist Elizabeth Bolton, 59, then paid £15,000 a year for working 22 hours a week part-time, paid herself gross when it should have been net.

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Bolton, who breached her employers’ trust by the fraud, disguised the shortfall and transferred money from one of two charity accounts held by the the council into the council’s main account as the tax year end approached.

After the tax year concluded, she would then ‘reverse’ that payment by repaying the relevant charity fund from the main account, leaving a net shortfall in the main account. Bolton then paid money in from other sources, including her own account, to make good, but from March 2008, she didn’t make enough payments and the money owed began to ‘almost run away with itself’.

By the time she resigned in May 2012, the net overpayment was £11,696. The defendant had been caught out when she was ill and an audit was carried out.

Bolton, of Palace Gardens, Burnley, admitted fraud by paying herself a salary in excess of that to which she was entitled, between January 1, 2007 and December 29, 2011.

The defendant was supported in court by her solicitor husband Peter, as well as members of the Methodist church she is a member of and which is said to be a big part in her life.

She sobbed in the dock as Judge Jonathan Gibson told her: “I think you can be appropriately punished in the community for what you did.”

Bolton received 10 months in jail, suspended for two years, with a 22 week, 9pm to 7am curfew and must attend the Lancashire Women’s Specified Activity Requirement. She was ordered to pay £1,000 costs.

The hearing was told the money has been paid back, with interest. Bolton had claimed constructive dismissal, but a counter civil claim was made against her.

Bolton was given a suspended sentence of 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, 13 years ago, after petrol bombing a car in 1999.

Katherine Pierpoint, defending the fraud, said: “This shouldn’t have happened. She’s embarrassed it has happened. She apologises for that behaviour and she knows she must be dealt with by the court today.”

The barrister said Bolton had struggled with mental health problems for a number of years. She had had help in the past and her mental health was particularly poor when she left her job. The defendant had had a problem with alcohol.

Bolton had recently started cognitive behavioural therapy.

Sentencing, Judge Gibson told Bolton what she did didn’t begin as a fraud, but became fraudulent.